Reflectorites
On Tue, 04 Apr 2000 14:22:59 -0500, Susan Brassfield wrote:
[...]
SB>Stephen Jones quoted a huge amount of the above article but left out these
>two tidbits:
>
>"Last June, following Mbeki's election to the presidency, Manto
>Tshabalala-Msimang was named minister of health. UNAIDS then brokered a
>deal with British pharmaceutical company Glaxo Wellcome for cut-rate AZT
>to be used in Africa to reduce the spread of HIV from infected mothers to
>their babies. Such AZT interventions reduced the number of HIV-positive
>babies born in the
> United States to just 32 last year."
I can't include everything. I did include some opposing viewpoints.
But now Susan has raised it, how do they know it was AZT interventions
which did the trick? I am suspicious of drug-company financed statistics.
If the drug companies have nothing to hide, why are they opposing South
Africa's commission to find out?
SB>and
>
>" (Ironically, when Deputy President Zuma's wife was raped in South Africa
> last summer she was immediately put on Nevirapine in hopes of blocking HIV
> transmission.)"
>
>Is it more anti-intellectual clap-trap? or is it pure racism or homophobia?
>I still havn't figured it out.
[...]
People are inconsistent. I don't know what I would do in a similar
situation. BTW there is an implicit assumption that it was Zuma who made
the decision and not his wife.
BTW I just ignore the usual attempt to shut down dissent with the favourite
but SIMPLY *boring* "anti-intellectual...racism...homophobia" slogans.
I repeat I am *not* denying that HIV causes AIDS, just that there
is a sizable body of expert opinion that it doesn't. A separate
question is whether highly expensive, highly toxic drug cocktails
are effective.
I welcome the South African government's attempt to find out
the truth about the relationship between HIV and AIDS.
Steve
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"IN crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a *stone*, and
were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer, that,
for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it
perhaps be very easy to shew the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I
had found a *watch* upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the
watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer
which I had before given, that, for any thing I knew, the watch might have
always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch, as
well as for the stone? Why is it not as admissible in the second case, as in
the first? For this reason, and for no other, viz. that, when we come to
inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone)
that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e. g. that
they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so
regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that, if the several parts had
been differently shaped from what they are, of a different size from what
they are, or placed: after any other manner, or in any other order, than that
in which they are placed, either no motion at all would've been carried on in
the machine, or none which would have answered the use, that is now
served by it." (Paley W., "Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence
and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature,"
[1802], St. Thomas Press: Houston, TX, 1972, reprint, pp.1-2. Emphasis
in original.)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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